Coping with COVID-19 - Part 6: Finding Meaning in Our COVID Experiences

COVID-19 is forcing us to wrestle with many ethical dilemmas. What is the obligation of a healthcare provider working in a hospital to his/her patients vs the obligation to stay healthy for his/her family? How does a pre-existing health risk affect that decision? If a family’s livelihood depends upon a parent working at a grocery store (knowing that grocery clerks are already showing elevated rates of COVID infection), how does one best support that family?

As mentioned previously, before we can fully engage our cognitive brain to make difficult decisions and to reflect on this pandemic, we need to fully engage with our emotional brain. While anxiety is to be expected, a sometimes more profound underlying emotion is the sadness stemming from the losses we have most certainly encountered. These losses are not limited to the death of loved ones, although being denied our normal means of communal grieving makes the loss seem even more intense. COVID-19 is confronting us with many other losses big and small such as that of a job, income, a senior prom, in-person classes, the prospects of a summer vacation, March Madness and other sports events, foregone opportunities and a sense of security in the future. Mourning these losses – both individually and in the company of others – is essential before we can make good decisions and derive some understanding of what we are going through. We also need to actively support our children in doing the same.

A failure to acknowledge our anxiety and to mourn these losses will lead to cynicism and ongoing fear – hoarding toilet paper, standing in long lines at gun stores anticipating the apocalypse, compulsively focusing on the stock market as if watching it will somehow change it. On the other hand, reflecting on our fears and sadness will permit us to slowly and tentatively develop a sense of hope or what psychologists call post-traumatic growth. That is, it is possible to change and actually thrive precisely because of adversity we have experienced. Remember, the Chinese symbol for crisis is comprised of characters representing danger and opportunity.

Spirituality, however we define it, is one known contributor to post-traumatic growth. Another contributor is compassion - toward ourselves, our families and others. This compassion may take the form of service to others, ranging from donating to food pantries to buying gift cards from small neighborhood stores to assure that they will not go out of business to donating blood to reaching out to those who are struggling with isolation.

Another contributor to post-traumatic growth is the recognition of our interdependence and inability to survive on our own. We may come to realize that if my health and safety are dependent on your health and safety, then it is not only compassionate on my part but also in my best interest to keep you healthy and safe. Similarly, our definition of heroes (i.e., those individuals who risk their lives in order to serve us) may expand drastically to include not only healthcare providers and first responders, but also grocery clerks, pharmacists, delivery people, and restaurant workers. COVID-19 may even serve the purpose of preparing us to address the much more significant existential crisis of climate change. People all over the world are looking up and suddenly seeing a blue sky devoid of pollution. What we will hopefully remember is that if my health and safety are dependent on the health and safety of the earth, then it is in my best interest to do something about that.

Finally, we need to guard against the fantasy of life returning to the pre-COVID-19 status quo. The only way to honor the losses we have endured is to make sure that we glean what meaning we can from our experiences and incorporate this into long-term change.